Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Odd Jobs

I read a post over at Babble this week about the odd summer jobs of celebrities and I thought back to some of my own gigs over the years. Here we go:Starting with High School:

Jack's Discount Store Cashier and Hot Dog Mobile Server in Galesburg (miserable, hot and ended up in the ER after passing out on top of the buns one particularly hot day!)

Classic Kids children's clothing store sales in downtown Galesburg

Bergner's men's and children's department sales at Sandburg Mall

Kastle Kreme - quite possibly the best summer job ever. Working shifts with my best friends, getting a birds-eye view of all the action and who was seeing whom all summer plus free ice cream and the best waffle fries in the world. Con: working for an elderly pervert!

A box factory. Yes, a box factory. I assembled boxes inside of other boxes in a factory with no a/c. First world problems, I know.

College, all in Bloomington-Normal except Rippy's:

IWU Office of Student Life, freshman year work study

IWU Alumni and Development, various summer jobs including entering the +4 digits to alum zip codes

IWU IT Department work study answering phones and troubleshooting in the computer lab

IWU Information Line operator. One summer, wasn't asked back because I wasn't nice enough on the phone!

Carlos O'Kelly's server. I lasted exactly one day.

Killarney's bartender for three years. I'm looking at you, Liz Grad, with our pleather pants! Right up there with Kastle Kreme as far as best jobs go. Working for cash, free drinks, and a birds-eye view of a whole other kind of action!

Babysitting. One family that shall remain nameless once tried to offer me a measly $170/week for 40 hours of childcare for their two kids. More first world problems, but come on! I realize 10 years later I'm paying time-adjusted prices of $13/hour for a babysitter and a small fortune for full time childcare but that would have been a real bargain for them. That's $4.25 an hour for watching TWO kids!

Construction company marketing for the guy who built La Bamba restaurants

Rippy's in Nashville bartender and server - for exactly 89 days until I would have had to take classes and get a real ABC card. I gave myself a deadline to find a job, and I managed to meet the challenge

That's a lot of odd jobs. What were your most interesting, dreaded, memorable and fun?